Cyberattacks are a growing threat to all businesses of every size across all industries. Data breaches, phishing attacks and malware can compromise sensitive customer information, cause business disruptions and lead to financial losses. Cyberattacks can be motivated by a variety of factors, including the desire to steal proprietary information or inflict damage on competitors. Moreover, some cyberattacks can be intentionally disruptive by tactics such as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks which overwhelm computer systems with so much traffic they become overwhelmed and inoperable.
As the attack surface has increased with the advent of IoT devices and cloud infrastructure, it’s more important than ever to have a clear view of your vulnerability risk and create an effective mitigation plan. The average “breakout time” of a cyberattack in 2023 was just 62 minutes, and attackers are becoming more sophisticated and targeted.
Some cyberattacks target specific types of information such as financial, medical or government data. This can be used for monetary gain, espionage or as the basis for blackmail.
Others aim to disrupt operations by stealing or destroying equipment or introducing bugs into system code. Malware is one of the most common cyberattacks and includes viruses, worms, ransomware and spyware that can corrupt files or even render a computer unusable. SQL injection attacks take advantage of vulnerabilities in web application software to insert malicious code into databases, enabling hackers to manipulate or steal data.
Finally, some cyberattacks are human in origin. Insider threats are perpetrated by employees or contractors who have access to your sensitive information and use that knowledge to launch an incident.